


Trick or Treating in Greenwich

by softjoycebyers



Category: Ocean's 8 (2018)
Genre: F/F, Halloween, Kid Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-01
Updated: 2018-11-01
Packaged: 2019-08-13 22:48:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16481207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softjoycebyers/pseuds/softjoycebyers
Summary: Debbie thinks she bit off more than she can chew but luckily Lou's with her every step of the way. Next time though, she might want to pay more attention.





	Trick or Treating in Greenwich

**Author's Note:**

> I may have taken some creative license as far as New York City is concerned. Full disclosure, I don't live there but I do visit a lot. 
> 
> I apologize for any residual mistakes, I am a one-person editing machine. Enjoy!
> 
> For Tammy, whom I sort of promised I'd write this but told her not to get her hopes up.

In retrospect, Debbie should have been paying more attention to Tammy on the phone last week. 

She knew the woman was trying to ask her something, but the moment Lou walked into their room after a day at the club Debbie had lost all focus. Lou had started getting ready for bed, and Debbie had stopped listening to Tammy ramble – her eyes never leaving Lou as she followed her around the room. 

Suddenly, she found herself agreeing to something Tammy had said, and to this day she’s not sure what she agreed too. All she knew at the that time was that she wanted to get her friend off the phone so she could follow Lou into the shower. 

“Okay. Okay, yes, Tammy. I gotta go, goodnight.” 

And that was that. 

It wasn’t until, now, a week later, staring at the little humans stood in her loft’s living room did Debbie realize her mistake. 

She really only had herself to blame. And maybe Lou, for being so goddamn distracting. But Debbie knew she was picking at straws. 

“Thank you so much for doing this Deb!” Tammy had said hurriedly, as she kissed her kids goodbye.

“For doing what exactly?” her smile was starting to hurt from being falsely plastered on her face. 

“Taking the kids tonight.”

“I’m what?” Debbie was confused and more than a little alarmed.

Tammy blinks lazily at Debbie, and for a moment they’re caught in a staring contest. 

“Debbie,” Tammy cleared her throat. “You said you’d take the kids trick or treating tonight.”

Debbie tried to laugh but it came out more like a pathetic whine, “when did I...” she falters. 

“When we talked on the phone last week.” 

Tammy’s now moving towards the door, backing away, waving to the kids.

“Be good for Aunt Debbie, okay, my darlings?” 

The kids nod, yelling out a chorus of bye mom.

Debbie’s hot on her heels though. 

“Tammy, c’mon... you can’t leave them here.” 

“Debbie, please. You promised you’d take them!”

“I don’t...what am I supposed to do with two kids?” Debbie called after her but Tammy was already out the door. 

Head against the now closed door, Debbie groans internally before turning back to walk towards the odd pair of little characters.

Just then Lou saunters down the stairs, rolling up her sleeves. Debbie didn’t have to look up at her to know that she had her signature smirk on her face.

“Are those the little critters I hear?” Lou says. 

“Uncle Lou!” They yell in unison. 

In flash Kari had met her the stairs, reaching her before she could climb all the way down, Lou bends forward to pick her swiftly. 

“And what are you supposed to be, monkey?” Lou asks the girl her arms, taking note of mismatched attire complete with half a mustache and mask. 

“Well, I couldn’t decide if I wanted to be Princess Buttercup or Westley,” Keri sighs dramatically, then continuing. “And then mommy said I could be both, so I’m half-princess half-West.” She beams. 

“That’s always an option,” Lou muses bouncing the rest of the way down with Keri and setting her down. 

Derek hobbles over to greet her in his Toy Story Rex costume, practically stumbling in his effort to hug her. 

Lou chuckles as she loses her balance in effort to catch him. 

“You okay there bud?”

“Yeah,” the little boy huffs, “I didn’t really think this through.”

He’s dressed as his favorite character from his all-time favorite movie, but his costume was too big, and the bottom half was too bulky. It made him waddle instead of walk, and his hood kept falling into his face. At least, Derek supposes, his walk should get points for accuracy. 

 

Meanwhile, Debbie watches the scene unfold with a sense of odd fascination. She marveled slightly at the ease her girlfriend seemed to have with these children when she felt the exact opposite. Debbie had never considered herself a kid-person, she barely liked dealing with adults unless she was robbing them. She could count on one had the number of times she’s spent with Tammy’s kids, and even then it wasn’t much before she went to jail – she doubted very much they remembered her now. 

“Not that I’m not happy to see you little monsters here,” she hears Lou say. “But what are you guys doing here?”

Debbie motions her hand to get Lou’s attention, “uh, Uncle Lou,” she beckons her to the kitchen area. 

Lou tells the kids to go sit on the couch and follows Debbie. 

“What are Tam’s kids doing here?” “Uncle Lou?” They say at the same time. Confused for different reasons. 

Debbie sighs in mild surrender – begrudgingly telling Lou how she may have gotten tricked into babysitting but that wasn’t her fault! She also tells her about how she may have tuned Tammy out at some point after she got home from the club and practically hung up the phone on her.

Lou click her tongue, smirking cheekily, “I can’t help it if you find me irresistible.”

Debbie quirks an eyebrow. 

“No...” she drawls. “That’s not what I said.”

“Sure,” Lou’s smile broadens. 

“Anyway,” Debbie tries steering the conversion back. “Now we have to take the kids trick or treating and I didn’t even realize it was Halloween.”

Lou perks up at this, the first and last time she went trick or treating coming to the forefront of her mind. 

“So what are we gonna do?”

“What do you mean ‘we’?” 

Debbie glares at her — she knows Lou is enjoying her momentary frazzled state. It didn’t happen often, she had a reputation to uphold after all. 

Lou chuckles, “Oh no. No. You agreed to take them trick or treating.”

Debbie pauses, then pouting, “So you’re not coming?” she sounds feeble, even to her own ears. 

“Of course,” the other woman laughs, crossing her arms. “I just want to see what you can up with.” 

Debbie thinks for a moment, trying to remember where in Manhattan she could take a couple kids to get some candy. She never paid much attention to the vibe of the holiday before or after she went to prison. 

After a beat finally thinking of something feasible, “don’t they have something in Greenwich every year? Do they still do that parade?” 

“Yes,” Lou answers, checking her watch. “But it’s too late for that now. We might still make the neighborhood trick or treating though.”

Noticing Debbie’s hesitancy to agree, she adds, more enthused for her lover’s benefit, “C’mon, it’ll be fun! When was the last time you went trick or treating?”

“1994”

Debbie snorts, remembering it well. 

Early on in their partnership, before the arguments and complications, they had taken a rare moment to breathe in between jobs. Staying low for a while, squatting in a nondescript town in the middle of nowhere. 

Lou had told her one night that she had never celebrated Halloween, it wasn’t something many did in Australia when she was growing up, and she hadn’t thought much about it again after moving into the group home. 

Debbie was slightly shocked to say the least, and a little sad that her relatively new friend had never experienced the holiday before. The next morning Debbie decided she was going to gift this experience to Lou. She was going take her trick or treating, she was sure she could find something for them to wear – no better time to blend in than now. It was perfect. 

Debbie wasn’t particularly interested in any holiday, much less Halloween and probably hadn’t been since she was a child – always more interested in seeing what items she could swipe while people were distracted by one sale or the other. 

But no one knew them in this town, and if the neighbors thought it was weird that two semi-grown adults were knocking on their door asking for candy like the children on the block, they didn’t say anything. 

“Well, if we want make it we have to leave now,” Lou raises an eyebrow bringing Debbie out of her reverie. 

 

–––––––

 

“Alright, where do you munchkins want to start?” 

They managed to find a parking spot relatively close to the start of the block — the parking meter free courtesy of the state for the next few hours. 

“There!” Keri and Derek immediately take off for a brownstone with a large menacing looking witch posted up on the front stoop. 

Derek is running at a much slower pace than his sister though he made a valiant at trying to beat her to the front steps, his clunky costume tripping him every other step. 

Lou tries not to laugh at the boy, reminding them both not to run but the sight of his waddling is too funny. 

“Tammy’s gonna kill us if we lose one of her kids,” Debbie says trying to keep her eyes on them among the throng of children that had seemingly appeared out of nowhere at the same house. 

“They’ll be fine. They’ve closed off the whole block.” 

“Yeah...” Debbie responds unconvinced.

“Alright Deb, what gives?” Lou moves Debbie away from the crowd, all the while keeping an eye the kids as they move on to the next house. Keri falling into step with brother making sure he doesn’t trip as much this time. She thought it was sweet how they looked out for each other. 

Debbie takes a deep breath, trying to gather herself. 

“Kids kind of make me nervous,” she mumbles but Lou hears her. 

“No shit,” Lou says. 

They’ve really come a long way in their communication skill but nevertheless Debbie still fixes her with a glare. 

“Hey,” Lou rubs her partner’s arms up and down before Debbie could could shut down completely. “But they’re not just any kids. They’re Tam-Tam’s kids.”

Debbie nods, “I know. I know. But I’m pretty certain I would have said no had I been paying attention.” 

Lou laughs, “Yeah well, that’s on you honey.”

“I guess,” Debbie rolls her eyes, chuckling with her.

“What about you? You’re practically perfect.”

“Hardly,” Lou shrugs. “I’ve babysat once or twice.”

“Definitely more than once or twice.”

It didn’t surprise Debbie that “Uncle Lou” was so great with kids when she was often a big kid herself. 

“They’re not so bad, you know,” they watch as all the children run from stoop to stoop, some frazzled parents chasing after them. 

Debbie looks at her but says nothing, “They’re just Tam-Tam’s kids. And we can always give them back at the end of the day.”

She vaguely remembers having this much energy as child, excited about dressing up and collecting candy from strangers during the only time of year it’s socially acceptable. 

“Yeah. I just haven’t been around much,” she casts her eyes down, missing Lou’s sad smile. “I guess I don’t know what they’ll make of me.”

“Nothing,” Lou’s quick to reassure. “You’ll be fun-loving Aunt Debbie in no time!”

Her partner laughs, “Oh baby, I can’t compete with you for that.”

“Nonsense, we can share. Besides, I’m Uncle Lou.”

“We still need to talk about that by the way, I want to know –– ”

The tug at the bottom of her jacket stops Debbie’s next words, and she turns to find a small gloved hand shoving something in her face.

“Here Aunt Debbie, I got you something,” Keri says, winded. 

Debbie takes the lollipop from the young girl, and then Keri’s gone again just as fast as she appeared but she’s left her with something she can’t quite put a name to, and Debbie’s warmed by the sweet and innocent gesture. 

Lou sidles up beside her and nudges her shoulder, “See. You don’t have to do much for them to like you.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first foray into writing fic for this fandom which is very dear to my heart. 
> 
> Drop me a line and let me know what you think! Reviews feed my soul.


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